Economics Among Monkeys: Much Ado About Little

I just listened to a Planet Money podcast about research into monkeys obeying economic principles in the wild. The summary is this: low rank monkeys are groomed less than high ranked ones. Researchers trained a low status female to open a special box that contained apple slices and since she had this new skill, the amount of grooming she received went up to that of high status members. Then another monkey was trained to do the same thing and both of the trained females' status met at a midpoint almost exactly halfway in between, just as basic microeconomics would suggest. This was hailed as a big deal because even without formalized systems the results were decidedly economic in nature. Unfortunately I see this as seriously underwhelming. Think about a monkey's motivations this way: I come across a monkey who can do something for me and I want to get on their good side so I groom them. Since there's only so much effort I'm willing to put into grooming, I must naturally split it among all the individuals I want things from. Spread that basic effect across a larger number of members and it will tend to average out to a 50/50 split if two skilled monkeys are present. This takes no deep understanding of any economic mechanisms (not to belittle the intellect of the primates concerned) and is pretty hard to be impressed by as it takes no long term planning or nuanced decision making. The result falls into the realm of the extremely obvious.